A 2016 mission meant to bore into the Red Planet needs a nice, smooth, frankly dull, landing spot to do its stuff.

This Mars mission promises to be a total bore. NASA has announced it has selected four possible landing sites most notable for being smooth, flat and barren for a mission to the Red Planet.

Scheduled for a 2016 launch and landing, the space agency's Interior Exploration Using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) lander will bore into one of four sites, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., announced Wednesday.

"Safe and boring is our motto for the landing on this mission," says JPL's Bruce Banerdt, principal science investigator for the mission. "What we are really interested in is the interior of the planet, not the surface."

After landing, the mission will explore under the surface of Mars using a probe that will hammer itself 12 to 15 feet deep under the resolutely uninteresting landing site eventually selected for the mission.

All four potential landing sites are located on the equatorial plain on Mars called Elysium Planitia, a good site for solar power panels needed for the mission. Two mission instruments will measure seismic activity and, using the probe, subsurface heat flow in the interior of Mars in a bid to better understand the composition and formation of the planet, such as whether its iron core is solid or still molten.

"Mars is fairly active geologically," Banerdt says, predicting the mission will detect a few Mars quakes as well. Landing on a smooth, flat, and decidedly dull spot, he says, will let the mission bore into the planet without complications and ensure a safer landing.